Greatness depends on . . .

by Kevin Coan, who posted this on the Yahoo Piano Teachers discussion board:

A very extensive study was released recently that demonstrates, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that natural talent has almost nothing to do with being great at anything. Certain factors, of course, would prevent a person from becoming great at a particular endeavor. A blind person cannot become a great racecar driver, and a person with missing fingers cannot become a great pianist. However, research shows that there is no such thing as a born athlete or a born musician.

If that is true, what factors DO influence a person's success? The answer is so simple that most of us miss it: a willingness to work hard, and a willingness to strive for improvement! Let us take these concepts and apply them to the piano.

A successful pianist is willing to work hard at becoming great. There is no substitute for putting in practice time. A weekly lesson of thirty to sixty minutes is not sufficient to enable the student to master the many fine motor skills needed to be a good pianist. The student who merely puts in a few minutes here and there will never be good as a musician. The great musician puts in several hours every week in serious practice.

A successful pianist is willing to do everything he or she can to learn as much as possible about music and piano. Rather than looking at the theory and writing assignments as an annoyance, the great piano student wants to read more, study more, and do more exercises until he or she becomes perfect in the principles of music.

A successful pianist masters the fundamental skills of playing. Just as an athlete is willing to spend time every day in the gym doing bench presses and squats, the pianist must spend time daily practicing scales, arpeggios, and finger exercises.

A successful pianist practices with PURPOSE. It is not enough just to repeat a piece over and over. Each time the good student plays a piece, he focuses on something he is going to do BETTER on this repetition. For example, one time he might focus on making the staccatos crisper and the phrases cleaner. The second time, he might focus on the dynamics and expression. One day, he might spend the entire practice session getting the piece up to tempo.
A successful pianist becomes personally and passionately involved in his pieces. If the piece is about snowflakes, he seeks to make the notes sound like snow falling ever so gently from the sky. If the piece is about a battle, he plays the music with such force that the audience feels like they are personally being shot. If the piece is a waltz, the good pianist waltzes in his heart while playing the music.

A successful pianist takes the elements of the music he is learning and makes them his own. He is creative with the way he expresses himself. He creates his own variations on the music, and he tries playing the piece in different styles. He also creates new music of his own, taking the best of the elements he has been exposed to and combining them in new and exciting ways.

Most importantly, the great pianist INTENDS to become great. A person must WANT to be good, and he must be willing to devote concentrated attention to becoming good. Greatness never happens by accident. It only happens when the great person MAKES it happen!